Blame! Arson
by atreriaestus
Summary: Mom told you about the fairy-tales: the happy endings, the friendships won, the hardships overtaken... But Mommy never told you about the famine, the betrayal, the sorrow... Mommy never told you about dying hearts or ghosts that still walk the night...
1. Breadcrumbs

I'm not going to give any fancy introductions for this one. This is an idea I've been sitting on for quite some time and have only further grown to love as time has passed. Thus, it has become my test subject for my first real multi-chaptered fic. Enjoy.

* * *

**Blame! Arson**  
Sugar, Spice, And Insulin  
Chapter 1: Breadcrumbs

* * *

_The white pebbles,  
they glittered,  
like real silver pennies._

The town's really more empty and longing than anyone would care to acknowledge. Now the smog only kisses the sky from the singular factory instead of how the many workplaces used to conduct it into practically making love to the sky. Fathers are jobless from the plants shutting down and mothers blame the repression, whatever that means. Little sisters don't play princess anymore and best friends move away, to bustling cities where things make more sense.

The houses ache constantly and moan in pain every time someone walks across a porch. Maybe that's a good thing; its well-placed knowledge that those sounds alert the inhabitants. Intruders in this town are few and far between.

Most of the homes are broken down and have some sort of trash in the front yard. A few try to spruce up with plastic decorations and fake animals. He curses Ms. Crumpet's pink flamingos as he passes every morning, hiding his middle finger in his pants pocket.

Only one school left standing now: there used to be two, before the fire of '86 on what used to be the elementary buildings. He doesn't go there when the kids his age feel like mischief, knows its a better plan to respect the grounds and the ideas they used to promote.

They said it was an unsolved arson case. He knows better.

But there's a special part in town where he likes to sit and think when the drizzle sets in, making the asphalt sheen like new volcanic rock. There's a row of seven street lights an unlucky number to be sure all synchronized in the early mornings, perfect after the night's rest. They only get muddled up in the traffic, really.

He sits at the arc of the road, just before the curve, and waits. It doesn't take long, the apathetic contraptions filtering out the few people on their way to work for a too-early shift.

He waits for it.

And all at once the green of the lights turns to yellow. Caution and warning and a sudden smell of sulfur and he loves it when there's not a vehicle on the perfect onyx boulevard.

The crimson burns into the road, vehement and angry, like the opening gates of hell. They're too damn bright to look like fresh blood, though it certainly suits the metaphor. The whole aura of downtown is alive and snarling and a writhing mass of sanguine and obsidian as he stares at and eventually rises to follow the staccato white lines in the middle of the road.

It's kind of ironic actually: a broken white line the only path down a brimstone road.

The first light turning green snaps him back to reality, takes him away from Dante's Inferno and back to Carol of the Bells because now the red and green reflections just remind him of Christmas and how much his sucked this last year. It sounds like an overdramatic teen movie, but all he got was a carton of cigarettes.

He exhales and looks up; the smog looks slate in the early morning sky, devoid of life and hanging like a listless ghost in the painted indigos. It reminds him to rub his fingers together, squeezing at the skin to pull off little rolls of acrylic.

"You were up all night painting again, weren't you?"

_He stuffs as many as he can  
in his little coat pockets._

He doesn't need to turn around to know his best friend's wearing that stupid leather jacket with the too-many zippers and belts and safety pins or the too-tattered pants that are only hanging on by a few threads at the knees. It's his favorite outfit, and he always sounds a touch more cocky in it.

Nor does he need to look to know that he's smoking a cigarette, and he can decipher from the smell it's the good kind. He doesn't verbally reply as he gestures to be given one over his shoulder, unobtrusively showing the man he's correct with his paint-stained fingers.

The half-smoked one is handed over and the sound of a Zippo nearly echoes on the wet cement valley as another is lit, followed by an exhale and, "Don't you ever get tired of the same old morning routine?"

"Not really." He could really think of something wittier to say, something about him not getting tired of the porno magazine that's been under his mattress for a year and a half, but he's just too lethargic and disinterested to actually say it. Matching wits with a redhead isn't his idea of Saturday Morning coffee.

The issue is dropped in a decrepit silence that crawls by until a car drives by a sort of clunking, squealing thing like all the cars in town, and one of them can tell right away what kind of repairs it needs, alarmingly unperturbed by two young men in the center of the road at such an early hour, as though they were simply imaginary. He watches the wind make the smog-clouds arc and crash like waves on a deep blue shore.

When he finally sets eyes to his companion, he can see the concern slowly eclipse over his face.

"Axel..." He's been trying to hide the fatigue and vague sadness in his eyes, but his elder can see it. He opens his mouth to say something--and then reconsiders. It's probably for the best.

_Shrreeckht._

He nearly leaps out of his skin at the sound like gnarled, grinding metal and Axel's bones do a little dance-about in fright.

_I am looking at my little white cat,  
which is sitting up on the roof,  
and wants to say good-bye to me._

There's a woman standing before Hellfire Road. She's more of a hag, really, with folds of leathery skin barely clinging to the corners of her mouth and eyebrows too shaggy for any of her gender. Her stature seems as short as her patience for posture.

His stomach shrinks as she offers a wicked grin with a mouth of decay. _She must be a mistress of lies_, he thinks wryly, _with a mouth that dirty._

"Naughty boys ought not be out so late, 'ay?" She spits through that grin in a generous accent of her age. Her steps are uneven as she comes forth and gives an inside of one of Axel's legs a quick smack with a walking cane that seems more accessory than utility leaving the poor redhead to rub at his bruise and grumble. "Even Hansel and Gretel left themselves a trail of breadcrumbs."

He wonders absently if this woman really even knows the story of the siblings left to starve in the woods, wonders if she knows Hansel left behind bleached little pebbles to walk home on a trail of spliced moonlight the first time of their betrayal. "We don't really have to worry," he interrupts his friend before the snide reply; "we haven't a mother to treat us so cruelly."

"Ah, bastards, is it?" She smiles again, stretching from each tuft of stringy, dirty gray hair.

Neither say anything, as though all the childhood warnings of not talking to strangers sinks into them and makes them unresponsive. She seems to bat a wrinkled eyelid at this, giving him a little wink and seeming particularly fond of piercing through his oceanic eyes straight to his soul.

"I simply come fer warnin', lovelies. _'All anxiety was at an end, and they lived together in perfect happiness'_ this tale does not tell."

He is clearly shaken, and if it were not for Axel exclaiming, "Oh, enough already!" while he spits out the filter of his cigarette and pushes his friend away from the woman, he really wouldn't know what to do. "Demyx, don't listen to this fuckin' harpy. We can both tell she's bat-shit insane."

"_Demyx_," she slides from her lips like a pig at the trough, pointedly ignoring the insults against her. "Such a weak name. Does it have a meaning?"

"I--" He tries to stutter a response, but his friend has already ushered him down Hellfire Road, the greens bizarrely reflective in his hair but soothing on his already lush eyes. He can't help but to think this is _wrong_, that with all this woman's said the lights should be yellow.

But the lights have never failed him before.

Axel seems to notice his discomfort and silence when they reach the doorstep of their little ratta-tat-tat house where it always smells like that plastic of fresh-paint despite the fact their home is nearly stripped down to the wood. They both know what waits for them inside: the smaller body curled up on the floor where they left it to go on their morning adventure.

Both exchange glances, wondering if they should inform the inhabitant of the morning's incidents. It's clear in both of their eyes they'd rather keep this a secret from their easily-roused roommate.

Axel finishes off his cigarette and throws it into the wet yard, exhaling: "I need to head off to work soon."

"Want me to make you breakfast first?" It's only halfway coy.

A grin curls. "Thanks, doll, but I packed my own lunch."

"Oh, without waking him? There's a surprise."

"Shut up, you."

_Oh, you dear children,  
who has brought you here?  
Do come in, and stay with me.  
No harm shall happen to you._


	2. Black Wool

Certainly a bit longer than the last. And viola! The cameos begin.

**Blame! Arson**  
Sugar, Spice, And Insulin  
Chapter 2: Black Wool

* * *

_Baa, baa, Black Sheep,  
have you any wool?_

* * *

Their new roommate came in a muggy summer when they suffered from no air conditioning, the wood of their house making the doors swell and jam shut. The whole town smelled like burnt grime, the pillars from the smokestacks making prison bars on the horizon. The heat of the afternoon made waves on the pavement, making the world appear as though the two boys recumbent on the porch had taken some sort of hallucinogen.

At least, that was how Axel described it though his muddled speech. The poor guy was recovering from a tongue piercing he'd made a weekend travel to the city to get, and it made Demyx wince every time he saw his swollen tissue or heard the ball clack on his teeth. To his benefit, however, Axel was using his mouthwash aplenty (more often than he needed to, really).

"S'lak the 'ho' wor'd goes 'ipply."

"The whole world goes what?"

"'ipply. Ya know, waves."

"Oh, ripples."

"Ya."

Their conversation continued thusly: Axel's muddy speech telling him about his surrogate adventures in the city from when he moved away and they lost contact for three years. The start of their town's repression forced many families to seek finances elsewhere, using the last of their savings to move to the city.

Demyx's family didn't have any savings. Just a beat-up two-decade-old pick-up (that Axel had to work on frequently) and an air conditioner that only circulated the heat. These were luxuries; it was a childhood rough and rotten for sure.

It was just that Axel was a masochist to return to a dying town and an ex-best friend whose relationship with whom _might as well _be dead. When the offer was made for them to be roommates in a cheap rent across town (so Demyx could get away from the parents and older brother he just couldn't get along with), he couldn't turn it down.

Everything went swimmingly. Except, you know, the guitar that was almost collateral damage for the broken window that was revenge for the public humiliation that was in retaliation to the forcibly indecent exposure on a date that just might've had something to do with a series of other "unlucky" events that all started with Who Drank The Last Soda.

Yeah. They had argued a lot before settling on the Indian-Coined saying, _"Let Bygones Be Bygones"._

Else wise, he would've said _bye_ and been _gone. _

And just as Axel lavished his own mouth with a slurp (supposedly the piece of metal striking through his tongue made him salivate more or something), a blur of inky black shot across their vision on the sidewalk. He gave his partner the quick raise of an eyebrow, and before he knew it the redhead was already down their driveway.

"'Ey! 'Ey, you, in the b'ack!"

He jolted up after him, partly worried about the trouble his friend could get himself into and partly worried the silhouetted-seeming person could verily whip around and punch him in the face. Wouldn't be the first time. But the figure didn't even freeze a muscle in its almost ... magisterial stride.

"Ag, dammar, ahm tahkin' t'you!"

It was certainly a rousing turn of events to be chasing down a friend who was chasing down a stranger decked in a black hoodie and too-baggy pants in sweltering heat, but it didn't take his mind off of the stagnant air making his lungs humid and mouth dry. _Stupid Axel_ and his _stupid impulsiveness_ and his _stupid, __**stupid**__ tongue ring. _

Well it was no wonder why the kid wouldn't want to turn around. Axel sounded like he'd just gotten his tongue cut off for generating some riotous mob with some acidic words or been convicted and punished for a heinous crime. Come to think of it ... Demyx would probably be running away a lot quicker than the blond boy...

Wait--blond? Oh. Well, Axel was the type that ... if he didn't _get your attention, _he would _**get**__ your motherfucking attention. _

So he had decided to haphazardly jerk down a stranger's hood in the middle of an oppressive July after chasing him halfway down the road (nearly to the damn gas station) and make odd, half-coherent demands of him like, "why are you wearing a fucking sweater in the middle of summer?"

Yep. Axel was perfectly normal.

And clearly ruffled when greeted with a nonchalant: "Well, I'm not anymore, since you just pulled it down."

The boy quite obviously younger than them was ... somewhat breathtaking and eye-stinging: that radiant pain in your eyes from walking out of a basement and into the blinding light of day, so bright and painful that you saw only angry peach through the cracks of your fingers.

The blond hair wasn't just ... _blond; _it was golden and sun-kissed and insurgent Kurt Cobain Bleach at the same time. Not like Demyx's blond (that was so obviously supposed to be brown that the dark, short sides and bleary roots almost pulled his trash-80's look together), but a bona fide, carpet-matches-the-drapes blond that _didn't _look like a beach-bum or a hooker.

Well, maybe not on the latter of the two. His eyes had a naturally sensual gleam to them (a little angry, a little promising) and a totally untouchable depth that seemed to only observe and allure, drawing them into the evanescent whirlpool of spinning, shifting colors before obstructing the airways in the tight, smothering cesspit of his pupil.

A run-on sentence, a run-on _thought,_ never looked so damn good, like the boy was simply an idea that could not die yet could not truly, tangibly exist.

"What are you _looking_ at?"

Axel said something incoherently. Demyx translated. "How many layers of clothing are you wearing?"

It was only after he had said (and saw the serious look in Axel's eyes) it that he really started looking. The hoodie was unzipped and he wore a black shirt underneath it, but at his collar, there were other colors brimming over the edge. The petite boy (with his small hands and wrists) seemed swallowed in the fabric.

Who would wear so much in the summer? He sensed something amiss.

The anger in his eyes surged up torrentially, held down by golden brows instead of spilling everywhere. His hands dived darkly into his pockets and he whipped, not at all sparing the two a colorful "fuck off".

Axel was in front of him before he even had a chance to get to the next plot of lawn, voice somehow seditious perfection despite its nuisance; "Why are you wearing so many clothes?"

The boy bucked in the grip tightening on his shoulders but couldn't free himself with the constricted movement. Instead, he jerked his eyes away, passed the redhead and to the gas station that had obviously been his destination, flickering just out of his reach, irony like that of a man dying of a heart attack on a doctor's doorstep.

Demyx intervened, his words soft in the tension between the others. "Shouldn't we ... at least ask his name before trying to pry into his business?" The dearth of Axel's patience was clearly waning yet more. But Demyx knew he was soft, deep down, knew he would comply. "Come back to our house for a drink...?"

The scowl never moved from the stranger's face. "Okay."

He gestured to himself. "Demyx."

"Axel," came the grunt, voice disinterested in formalities.

"...Roxas."

* * *

_Yessir, yessir,  
three bags full!_

* * *

Demyx tries his best to tip-toe around the shadow clinging to the ground, he really does ... but when his ankle becomes shafted to that unmoving black, he can't help but ... well ... land on his face.

Eyes burn at him, violent in the slim light; "Where have you been?" And the voice was just as hot.

Momentarily paralyzed, he searches for the right lie before giving a breath and setting his head down on his arm, simply looking at the youth. "Our usual. You should know that by now."

"It's getting a little ridiculous."

"It's been raining a lot," he counters with patience, voice a whisper even if there's no reason to, no one left to wake. Simply that early-morning ambiance. "Axel doesn't like it, but ... you know me."

"The reflections on the road."

"Yeah. You remember, right? The first time I showed it to you. How everything lights--"

"I remember," his shadow says smoothly, voice losing some of its strain and weight of sleep. "It'll be a year in a few months, huh?"

"Since you moved in? Yeah." Demyx rummages in his pockets, only to hear the plastic crumble as his cigarettes are torn from his grasp. "H-Hey!"

"You know you're not allowed to smoke in the house. It's your own rule."

"If it's my rule, _**I**_can break it, right?"

"Wrong." Evidently feeling the motivation to finally get up, he moves across the room and throws the pack away. "Besides, these things are disgusting. They'll turn your fingers yellow, and what will you paint then?"

No one can see his smile through the darkness. "You, with your canary hair and skin of gold."

More shadowed moving, as Demyx watches the silhouette put on a t-shirt, and he frowns that he doesn't get to see that perfect skin. "Stop trying to sweet talk me. You're not getting them back, and that's that." He put more clothes on, stiff and straight.

He knows he's getting ready for work. He never needs an alarm, the way he and Axel aree always shifting around in the dark and waking him up. "But you smoke."

"I quit. You should do the same. We might get our rent in on time."

He pouts within the obscurity. "Low blow. Jerk."

"Just saying."

* * *

_Two for the master,_

* * *

It was the usual group of 12:o2 at the diner, the only place in town that was still in business due to its popularity even before the repression. It was still going good and strong, having the connections to order food in cheap and sell it for a decent price that a few of the working folk in town could afford (hell, sometimes it was cheaper than cooking meals at home).

There was Ms. Crumpet and her gaudy jewelry, leaning over her soup of the day, most likely looking at a wallet-sized photo of her deceased husband in her hand. Her yard went to shit after he died: those flamingos that Demyx sometimes swore watched him as he passed in the mornings. She was just a lonely old bitty now.

Of course, Mr. Fribley sat in the corner, mumbling incoherently on the other side of his newspaper, occasionally pretending to flip a page to steal a little glance at Ms. Crumpet. It was a well-known secret throughout the town that he had been in love with her since before her husband's death, but he had never actually made the attempt to be recognized in her eyes. He'd always make the excuse he was waiting for her heart to heal.

He was a gentleman, really. Far more gentle than the next customer: Val DeElkirk. The bitch had a hollow stare, given life only by a gratuitous amount of skin and jeans sitting too low on her hips. The whole town knew she had a hard-on for the big city and an even bigger hard-on for Axel, who had lived in and breathed in and tasted the desirous smog of the metropolis. She thought he was her key to the bustle.

Axel just brushed her off as he walked through the door. He not-so-quietly swore to Demyx she was a lesbian, anyway. Probably a whore, too, especially with the initials _"V.D."_

He was more interested in a different pair of legs, anyway; he leaned over the counter to get a good look at them. Black denim-clad (the kid had never gotten used to not wearing black), weight leaned on one, pad of paper on a hip, and his red pen cap touching his lips as the shine from the screen in front of him reflected in his eyes.

"Aeris! This stupid, fucking thing isn't working again!" ... So much for the peace.

"Roxas, I've warned you about your language in front of the custom-... Oh, it's only Axel. Never mind." She ignored Axel as he gave his show of being mock-offended, humming as she leaned over the blond's shoulder to press a few keys. "There you go, love. You just typed in the check number wrong."

He had never been technologically brilliant. Having to use the stupid things for his job only made his tolerance for them shorten. "Right. So what're you here for, a free meal?"

"So kind of you to offer, Roxy."

"I wasn't. And don't call me that."

Aeris laughed, all that gentle grace and benevolence. "It's okay, Roxas. He did work on The General's car and only charge him half price. I think he deserves recompense."

"He's only been paid back about four times now," Roxas muttered in disdain.

"Speaking of your boss, where is he?"

The gentle woman's eyes seemed to grow sad for a moment. "We're arguing."

"AGAIN?"

She gave a defiant shrug, turning back to the window that showed their usual grill-cook's back: "Xig, put on Axel's usual." When she saw the tall man give a sarcastic salute, she turned back to the warring roommates. "So how's work going, Axel?"

"All right. I had a guy come in today that wasn't getting enough fuel to his carburetor, so that'll cost a pretty penny."

"Does he have that kind of money?"

"I certainly hope so."

"You're heartless," Roxas muttered as he went off to collect an order.

"You probably thought so when I took you in off the street before the lights got cold, huh?" All he received was a glare over his shoulder.

* * *

_one for the dame,_

* * *

He finds the parallel entertaining. Axel's always annoyed when he has paint splattered across his hands at 4:oo a.m. But when the redhead comes home, he always has ... oil, grease ... every bit of mechanic's dust and grime clinging to his jump suit.

He has the thing tied around his waist, white wife-beater full of stains that Demyx can only get out with a splash of turpentine, grumbling about how he's wasting it again instead of using it to get that nice fresh-blood look on his canvas.

But that's only when he uses oils. Those were desperate things for desperate measures.

He hasn't had one of those in a while. And he's starting to worry. With that hag's face on his mind, would he be able to paint anything else? Be able to charcoal sketch anything but those abstract divots and painfully sharp lines?

And when he comes home, Axel will see him on the couch, staring vacant and thin into the white noise on their cheap, bunny-eared television set that's probably only played that salt-and-pepper race for the past few hours.

He's learned to leave his boots on the porch to not track in the stains, learned to strip down to his boxers before he hits the bedroom and throw his clothes in a separate pile for washing, and they've all learned to be courteous at first around each other to test the waters, see who's in which mood.

But Roxas won't be home for another two hours, and Axel can't help the cruel smile at how vulnerable his little artist looks on the couch with that blank stare.

As much as he wants to, he can't.

Not really. Not until the time is right.

* * *

_but none for the little boy,  
who cries down the lane._


End file.
